*EMERGENCY CALL* what will be done in 2-4 weeks when...................

[Threjyan]

I have already seen a massive exodus of players that I know in this game. I am watching literally guilds dissolving as we speak and I am not even exaggerating when I say that. My sub ends in 2 days so 24 or 25 whichever. I know a lot more people who have unsubbed and will no longer be playing this game in a week or two.

 

can u provide numbers/names?

[Threjyan]

Then, at last, we shall have peace.

 

 

oh my..priceless!

[MadCuzBad]

can u provide numbers/names?

 

de·ni·al noun /di- ˈ nī(-ə)l, dē-/

 

Definition of DENIAL

 

1 : a psychological defense mechanism in which

confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality

 

2 : refusal to admit the truth or reality

 

3 : refusing to admit the truth or reality of something unpleasant

[Taramayne]

de·ni·al noun /di- ˈ nī(-ə)l, dē-/

 

Definition of DENIAL

 

1 : a psychological defense mechanism in which

confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality

 

2 : refusal to admit the truth or reality

 

3 : refusing to admit the truth or reality of something unpleasant

 

Ok, now we need a definition for "evading the question"..

 

:D:D

[MadCuzBad]

Ok, now we need a definition for "evading the question"..

 

:D:D

 

Its a stupid question. That's like entering a murder scene and there are two people on the floor murdered and blood everywhere and the news paper asks the lead detective "give us the names and how many people were involved yaddda yadda yadda" and the detective says I don't have that exact information. And the newspaper goes "Ah ha!!! See there is nothing going on here. He doesn't even know who or how many people did this. There is nothing more to see here, move along."

 

I mean that is how stupid him asking me to give him names and numbers of the people leaving. I mean how stupid. And the only answer to that is that the person is in full throttle denial.

 

I mean does it really change anything about the murder that the detective doesn't have those exact answers? NO IT DOESNT. It doesn't change the fact that there are two people murdered and dead. Same thing here on SWTOR. Just because I don't have the exact names of the players leaving and the exact logistical number of how many doesn't change the fact that there is a huge exodus of players leaving this game like I have never seen before.

 

His question was stupid and makes absolutely no difference one way or the other in the issue at hand. So why bother answering a stupid question? Answer not a fool in his folly lest you become a fool. He is in full throttle denial. And that just where I am going to leave him. He can wallow in his own dung.

[Costello]

I think people can make up their own minds from the numbers of guild members, on friend lists, how long it takes for group content to pop or even if you have to deal with people stealing your objectives in heroics just how well received the grind has been.

 

I'm sure that everyone is also aware if you prefix anything with 'but all games loses people over the holidays' you are both very fortunate to have a loving family who demand you come visit them and can't log on but also making excuses which probably aren't as relevant as they may have been 15 years ago when the only people that played 'computer games' could be dictated to by their families.

 

I had hoped that BW would have done something to improve the state of the grind/game/experience before the holiday break. 5.1 seems a long way off and the system does not seem to be the lure or have the appeal from looking at my friends list, guild list and even server list. I don't put too much stock in films being free advertisement unless there is a very close cross over, but as there isn't a Star Wars MMO set in the time of a New Hope, I'd of kind of hoped there would have been a noticeable infux of new and returning players. The new story is a month old and yet the people I saw return for it are no longer bothering to log in which may suggest regrinding 5 year old content 1000 times may not be the lure BW thought. While at the time of writing this 2 European and 1 US servers are standard the rest are light. No prizes for guessing which ones.

 

I don't honestly see much likely to improve much until 5.1 and by then if the grind has driven people away the idea of completing NiM content for a chance at an unassembled piece may not be enough to cover come the enormity of the grind. Hell I don't think wiping 100 times on NiM content would ever be much of a lure for many players.

[BenduKundalini]

Its a stupid question. That's like entering a murder scene and there are two people on the floor murdered and blood everywhere and the news paper asks the lead detective "give us the names and how many people were involved yaddda yadda yadda" and the detective says I don't have that exact information. And the newspaper goes "Ah ha!!! See there is nothing going on here. He doesn't even know who or how many people did this. There is nothing more to see here, move along."

 

I mean that is how stupid him asking me to give him names and numbers of the people leaving. I mean how stupid. And the only answer to that is that the person is in full throttle denial.

 

I mean does it really change anything about the murder that the detective doesn't have those exact answers? NO IT DOESNT. It doesn't change the fact that there are two people murdered and dead. Same thing here on SWTOR. Just because I don't have the exact names of the players leaving and the exact logistical number of how many doesn't change the fact that there is a huge exodus of players leaving this game like I have never seen before.

 

His question was stupid and makes absolutely no difference one way or the other in the issue at hand. So why bother answering a stupid question? Answer not a fool in his folly lest you become a fool. He is in full throttle denial. And that just where I am going to leave him. He can wallow in his own dung.

 

It's fascinating to see the mechanisms of denial pop up in a mere game ain't it? Now wonder IRL behavior is plagued by it at the most serious levels... shaking my head.

 

I guess I'm one of your rerolls lol. I happen to have toons on all servers and just this week there's been so many instances where I was THE ONLY ONE LOGGED IN. Ok, perhaps there were thousands in the other faction, which is not visible? (all stealthers of course, when you're out in the open)

 

Also, GTNs with WHOLE SECTIONS ABSOLUTELY VOID...

 

Wondering how much it cost Bioware to load a whole world just for myself, btw.

 

What I don't get is that what we're demanding has ALREADY BEEN DONE. In 2012 IIRC. Heck, you even have the silly lost server names on conquest to remind you of servers that once were...

Edited December 23, 2016 by BenduKundalini

[Fal_Soram]

What will be done in 2-4 weeks when you post the same thread you've been posting for the past idk how long? Not sure, maybe one day you'll finally learn to shut up.

[MadCuzBad]

What will be done in 2-4 weeks when you post the same thread you've been posting for the past idk how long? Not sure, maybe one day you'll finally learn to shut up.

 

Is this the part of the story where you put your fingers deep in your ears and start screaming and yelling "I cant hear you, I cant hear you, lalalalala lalalalala lalalalala, I cant hear you, I cant hear you ......................"

[Tsillah]

What will be done in 2-4 weeks when you post the same thread you've been posting for the past idk how long? Not sure, maybe one day you'll finally learn to shut up.

 

You do realise that the only thing he's really interested in is getting a reaction from people? He pushed the button and you reacted...he wins again.

 

The cool thing is, I can just sit here and write this in a post and people will keep doing it. I find it hilarious to see.

[MadCuzBad]

You do realise that the only thing he's really interested in is getting a reaction from people? He pushed the button and you reacted...he wins again.

 

The cool thing is, I can just sit here and write this in a post and people will keep doing it. I find it hilarious to see.

 

So you are laughing at yourself I take it?

[Tsillah]

So you are laughing at yourself I take it?

 

Ohh I don't have a problem with it. I'm one of your fans. So please resub, ok?

[Fal_Soram]

You do realise that the only thing he's really interested in is getting a reaction from people? He pushed the button and you reacted...he wins again.

 

The cool thing is, I can just sit here and write this in a post and people will keep doing it. I find it hilarious to see.

 

Oh I know he's just an attention seeker. But sometimes it's fun to throw just a little more fuel on the fire and see what happens. I enjoy laughing at the nonsense he posts.

[DanNV]

I just took some time to poke at Tortastus.net. After 4.0, everyone was worried about the drop in population over the following month or two. With 5.0, the population has dropped to the point it took until Feb to get to last year. So, in 2 months less time the population has dropped significantly. (Look at the stats for the game in North America for the entire year.)

 

There was a nice uptick for launch, which died out within a couple of days.

 

If you look, you will see that the best time for this game, last year, was Late Dec to early Jan. (Sort of shoots holes in the idea that the game loses population for the holidays.) There was a while where some of the servers were periodicially showing Heavy, but full still flatlined. This year, the population has dropped to Feb levels in 2 weeks, no servers are showing heavy at all (and, of course, none showing full.)

 

If you look at specific servers, a couple are up, but I'd theorize that those minor upticks in popuplation are due to transfers off of some of the flatlined servers. (And lots are all but flatlined at Light.)

 

All in all, I'd say this gives a better view of the health of the game than the forum threads for or against what the devs have done to the game. The threads give a good idea what the problems are that have caused the drop in population, but they don't give numbers or facts you can look at. I expect BW has better info, like they'll know the real number of people logged on not just the server status scale.

 

If I worked for BW or EA I'd be very concerned with the data that is available and would be looking at calling people back form vacation to make some serious changes to try to get people to come back. The gearing needs to change, end game content needs to be created, announced and released, and plans need to be made to make content that is more replayable by alts and different classed, and those plans need to be announced. Taking a month off for Christmas isn't gonna cut it, not this time, not based on the current game populations.

 

Further, I expect it will take some serious promotions to get people to come back even if they do everything above. Free sub time, major discounts for renewing.returning subs, something. As it stands now, the trends don't look at all good, and look worse when combined with forum threads, in-game chat and what I have heard form my own guildies.

[Tsillah]

Oh I know he's just an attention seeker. But sometimes it's fun to throw just a little more fuel on the fire and see what happens. I enjoy laughing at the nonsense he posts.

 

fair enough

[MadCuzBad]

Oh I know he's just an attention seeker. But sometimes it's fun to throw just a little more fuel on the fire and see what happens. I enjoy laughing at the nonsense he posts.

 

The problem for you is that I seek the attention of the development team, not white knights who always seem to try and undermine every thread I make. That's the part that unfortunately you don't see. Mostly because a lot of white knights can not see past their own nose. I am fully aware of this syndrome so that is why I quickly put you back in your place. I know its painful and you don't like it when I do that, but that's just how I roll. When you poke a stick inside of a bees hive expect to get stung. So keep pouring your fuel on the fire and I will keep burning down the house.

[Neshira]

He's not wrong when he says low pop servers are in bad shape. Bastion has no pvp pops even during prime time hours

 

Bastion was like that long before 5.0. Nice try.

[Jamtas]

I just took some time to poke at Tortastus.net. After 4.0, everyone was worried about the drop in population over the following month or two. With 5.0, the population has dropped to the point it took until Feb to get to last year. So, in 2 months less time the population has dropped significantly. (Look at the stats for the game in North America for the entire year.)

 

There was a nice uptick for launch, which died out within a couple of days.

 

If you look, you will see that the best time for this game, last year, was Late Dec to early Jan. (Sort of shoots holes in the idea that the game loses population for the holidays.) There was a while where some of the servers were periodicially showing Heavy, but full still flatlined. This year, the population has dropped to Feb levels in 2 weeks, no servers are showing heavy at all (and, of course, none showing full.)

 

If you look at specific servers, a couple are up, but I'd theorize that those minor upticks in popuplation are due to transfers off of some of the flatlined servers. (And lots are all but flatlined at Light.)

 

All in all, I'd say this gives a better view of the health of the game than the forum threads for or against what the devs have done to the game. The threads give a good idea what the problems are that have caused the drop in population, but they don't give numbers or facts you can look at. I expect BW has better info, like they'll know the real number of people logged on not just the server status scale.

 

If I worked for BW or EA I'd be very concerned with the data that is available and would be looking at calling people back form vacation to make some serious changes to try to get people to come back. The gearing needs to change, end game content needs to be created, announced and released, and plans need to be made to make content that is more replayable by alts and different classed, and those plans need to be announced. Taking a month off for Christmas isn't gonna cut it, not this time, not based on the current game populations.

 

Further, I expect it will take some serious promotions to get people to come back even if they do everything above. Free sub time, major discounts for renewing.returning subs, something. As it stands now, the trends don't look at all good, and look worse when combined with forum threads, in-game chat and what I have heard form my own guildies.

 

I have stopped logging in. My sub is ending Jan 2nd/3rd and I will only come back after actions have been taken to address my concerns. Part of 5.1 will help, but what they have said isn't enough for me. Ben's comments about ignoring what people are saying they want and instead using in game metrics to decide is so flawed. It was already covered better here so I won't rehash that.

[Wayshuba]

If I worked for BW or EA I'd be very concerned with the data that is available and would be looking at calling people back form vacation to make some serious changes to try to get people to come back. The gearing needs to change, end game content needs to be created, announced and released, and plans need to be made to make content that is more replayable by alts and different classed, and those plans need to be announced. Taking a month off for Christmas isn't gonna cut it, not this time, not based on the current game populations.

 

Further, I expect it will take some serious promotions to get people to come back even if they do everything above. Free sub time, major discounts for renewing.returning subs, something. As it stands now, the trends don't look at all good, and look worse when combined with forum threads, in-game chat and what I have heard form my own guildies.

 

Too late. Just like launch, there were a plethora of articles which explain you have to get it right off the bat. If you don't, then you best work closely with the community to improve (like ESO and FFXIV) or else you will be dead in the water. They were warned - from the paying customers (community), from MMO newsites, and from long time dedicated fansites that it was a HUGE mistake to go forward with this. But, as Dulfy stated (paraphrased) - "They determined to ignore the community feedback and set fire to the game, and be prepared to fix it later."

 

Unfortunately, sometimes the damage cannot be repaired. Group content has gone through a long spell of two years (almost half the games existence) and people's patience was already razor thin. Add the complete slap on the face to paying customers that is the GC/RNG/grind system, and a lot of people have had enough.

 

BW has NEVER understood the MMO market. They also have long taken for granted the strength of the Star Wars IP when there are literally hundreds of MMOs on the market. I contest that a lot of players simply enjoy the format of an MMO and the MMO community and therefore will play any MMO where they find the most satisfaction.

 

My sub is almost done, but I haven't logged in more than two hours in the last couple of weeks. Within a day of not logging in, I already started in a new MMO and a few guild mates have come as well, and more are planning to shortly. Once we immerse ourselves elsewhere, there is little need to look back. The thing is, we would have never done it had BW not gone live with this completely idiotic system design. It is not only not fun, it is plain discouraging.

 

I personally believe that 5.0, and the GC system specifically, is going to cause unrecoverable damage to the game and the community. This was BWs last hurrah to try and really get things going again and they blew it big time. Looking forward to seeing the next couple of quarterly reports from EA - then we will know the true extent of the damage this system has done.

 

In the end, I believe whoever told the execs at EA, "that they revamped the game to retain subs longer and therefore will increase revenue", which EA kindly put in the shareholders letter, is going to have a lot of explaining to do when the exact opposite happens of what the EA execs are expecting. My bet, is within six months, this GC system is ultimately going to cost someone their job.

Edited December 23, 2016 by Wayshuba

[midianlord]

I have stopped logging in. My sub is ending Jan 2nd/3rd and I will only come back after actions have been taken to address my concerns. Part of 5.1 will help, but what they have said isn't enough for me. Ben's comments about ignoring what people are saying they want and instead using in game metrics to decide is so flawed. It was already covered better here so I won't rehash that.

 

TL/DR:

 

"Father knows best what you want, and we'll just conveniently ignore that it's really only always what father wants...And what father wants, father gets, and screw you if you don't like it."

 

Oh my Dog, that guy is such.

A ***********.

Prat!

 

How do people like that get and keep jobs? Seriously, how?

 

How the **** has it come to this? Have they learned nothing from the original Mass Effect 3? (Yes, I made sure to get the Extended Cut. Apparently, that version took out the original "Buy moar DLC nao, pleez, kthxbai" pop-up after credits-roll.)

 

My sub goes till 26 January, and I think I'll be pulling he plug then, this is just so utterly insufferable. Sick of having my intelligence insulted by clueless, arrogant prats who then expect me to give them money I *********** earned doing actual *********** work IRL, which this gormless tw*t has probably never done a day of in his happy, neatly pre-packaged little company-man life.

 

Dead-seriously:

 

**** that guy, and **** BioWare too, I am done.

 

(Just as an aside: I still, after all this time, wonder with morbidly cynical amusement what exactly they meant by "Better than cross-server." Does anyone know? More to the point, do they even know?)

Edited December 24, 2016 by midianlord

[DanNV]

My sub is almost done, but I haven't logged in more than two hours in the last couple of weeks. Within a day of not logging in, I already started in a new MMO and a few guild mates have come as well, and more are planning to shortly. Once we immerse ourselves elsewhere, there is little need to look back. The thing is, we would have never done it had BW not gone live with this completely idiotic system design. It is not only not fun, it is plain discouraging.

 

Just out of curiosity which game are you moving to? I've looked at STO and WoW and am looking for other options to look at.

 

I personally believe that 5.0, and the GC system specifically, is going to cause unrecoverable damage to the game and the community. This was BWs last hurrah to try and really get things going again and they blew it big time. Looking forward to seeing the next couple of quarterly reports from EA - then we will know the true extent of the damage this system has done.

 

In the end, I believe whoever told the execs at EA, "that they revamped the game to retain subs longer and therefore will increase revenue", which EA kindly put in the shareholders letter, is going to have a lot of explaining to do when the exact opposite happens of what the EA execs are expecting. My bet, is within six months, this GC system is ultimately going to cost someone their job.

 

I am personally hoping Ben Irving is the first out the door and never gets a job in the game industry again. But we'll see. We'll know it's going badly if they suddenly start looking to fill positions where people have "left to pursue other opportunities." We'll know it's over if people just start bailing and they aren't trying to fill the positions.

[Aeristash]

BW has recently acknowledged the "empty" servers and has said they will do merges early next year if R1 and 5.0 don't fix things. For now we do have 90cc transfers.

 

For my part I completely agree that having half your servers be dead for new and returning players to surge to is going to give half of them very bad impressions. Last night JM and POT5 each had less than 150 players on rep side and HALF of the 70s on both of them were shadows on Y4 - I've never seen servers in this game that were more dead than that.

 

When did they say that? Last I heard, they said they were going to monitor the situation. I heard nothing of any concrete plans.

[AlienEyeTX]

MCB, if you're leaving, why do you care what they do with the servers?

[Fal_Soram]

The problem for you is that I seek the attention of the development team, not white knights who always seem to try and undermine every thread I make. That's the part that unfortunately you don't see. Mostly because a lot of white knights can not see past their own nose. I am fully aware of this syndrome so that is why I quickly put you back in your place. I know its painful and you don't like it when I do that, but that's just how I roll. When you poke a stick inside of a bees hive expect to get stung. So keep pouring your fuel on the fire and I will keep burning down the house.

 

You did not, nor will you ever be capable of putting me in my place.

 

Now, run along and continue with whatever it is you think you can accomplish here, I enjoy the entertainment.

[MadCuzBad]

You did not, nor will you ever be capable of putting me in my place.

 

Now, run along and continue with whatever it is you think you can accomplish here, I enjoy the entertainment.

 

Get over yourself. You have added nothing but your own toxic spew to this thread. If this thread bothers you or tears you up inside, move to a thread you can handle. Because this one is a little to hot of a potato for you to hold onto. Save yourself the embarrassment and move along.